RoboMirror

RoboMirror is a GUI front-end for the quite popular Robocopy.exe command-line
utility for Windows.

Robocopy is shipped with Windows since Vista and available as free SDK tool for
previous Windows versions (RoboMirror already includes it).
It allows to robustly synchronize two directory trees, both locally
and across the network. It is therefore often used for mirroring purposes,
e.g., as a powerful yet free backup utility.

RoboMirror's aim is to make Robocopy more accessible by providing a very
simple and user-centered GUI, because most users simply don't want to
work directly with the console or are overwhelmed by Robocopy's flexibility.

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What's new?

v2.0

Mirror operations queue. RoboMirror now allows you to add additional mirror operations to a queue for batch processing. You can also let RoboMirror shut the system down as soon as the queue has been processed.

Upgraded to .NET 4.0

Improved log system wrt. scalability and robustness

v1.3

Volume shadow copies for all Windows versions since and including XP. RoboMirror now handles the shadow copies itself and doesn't rely on Microsoft's vshadow.exe tool anymore.

Volume shadow copies are created with VSS writer involvement to ensure a consistent state of each file

Very rough progress estimate displayed in the context menu of an operation's task tray icon

Various minor improvements as side-effects of internal code refactoring

v1.2

New: Warn about mismatched items (e.g., a new file in the source tree colliding with an existing folder with the same name in the destination tree)

Extended statistics after a simulation run

Changed Last backup time stamp to Last successful operation

v1.1 - 'The flexibility booster' ;)

New Overwrite newer files option for mirror tasks. This allows for two-way synchronization, see below.

New: Power users may use custom basic Robocopy switches instead of the default ones. This makes RoboMirror very flexible!

New: If the Use a volume shadow copy option is used for a restore operation, a shadow copy of the target volume will be created.

v1.0.1

Fix bug when selecting a root directory as source or target folder

Fix erroneous detection of files & folders to be deleted

v1.0 compared to v0.6

Fix very silly bug crashing the app when the simulation run revealed no pending changes

RoboMirror XML files for mirror tasks & log have been moved from %APPDATA%\RoboMirror to %LOCALAPPDATA%\RoboMirror

Scheduled tasks are created in RoboMirror subfolder for Windows Vista and newer

UI tweaks

New & improved installer based on Inno Setup

Features

Very simple graphical interface

Simplicity was one of the primary goals as I started coding this little
application when my mum asked me for a simple backup tool. I was not
able to find something I was looking for, so I started this project with
the aim to be as simple as possible while still providing for what
most users need, e.g., performing backups of folders to external hard
drives or network shares, synchronizing an MP3 player with the music
folder etc.

Managing mirror tasks

RoboMirror is based on a set of mirror tasks. A mirror task consists in
a source folder and a target folder.

When performing a backup, new and modified files & folders in the
source folder will be copied to the target folder.
When performing a restore operation, the operation is reversed by swapping
source and target folders, i.e., new and differing files & folders in
the target folder will be copied to the source folder.

The Overwrite newer files option controls whether newer files
in the target (restore operation: source) folder are to be overwritten by
older ones from the source (restore operation: target) folder.

Files & folders which exist in the target (restore operation: source)
folder but not in the source (restore operation: target) folder, so-called
extra files & folders, can optionally be deleted to create an identical mirror.

Two-way synchronization

Performing a two-way synchronization is admittedly a bit clumsy, but oversimplifying it can easily result in bad surprises.

Scenario: Both folders are to contain all files and the latest version of each file.

Make sure to disable both Overwrite newer files and
Delete extra files and folders options for the desired task.

Perform a backup operation. This will copy all new and newer files & folders from the
source folder to the target folder.

Then perform a restore operation. This will copy all new and newer files & folders from the
target folder to the source folder.

Extended NTFS attributes

Besides copying file data, attributes and time stamps, RoboMirror can also
copy extended NTFS attributes, either only the access control lists (ACLs) or
everything (ACLs, owner and auditing information).

Excluding files & folders

Entire subfolders, files and wildcards in the source (restore operation: target)
folder may be excluded from synchronization.
Additionally, files may be excluded by any of the common attributes (Hidden, System and Encrypted).

A wildcard excludes all matching items in the source (restore operation: target)
folder and in all of its subfolders!
Due to Robocopy limitations, wildcards cannot include any path information, e.g., \MySubfolder\*.bak is
not a valid wildcard.

Simulation run to identify the pending changes which are then presented
to the user, asking for confirmation. This should prevent unpleasant
surprises. ;)

Scheduling backups

Backup tasks may be scheduled on a regular basis (daily, weekly and
monthly at a given time).

Scheduled RoboMirror tasks require an interactive session, so the user needs to be
logged on. The tasks are scheduled such that they are executed automatically as soon as possible if
a scheduled start has been missed (e.g., because the machine was powered off or the user
wasn't logged on).

Tip: If a backup task is scheduled via RoboMirror running as administrator,
the scheduled task will be executed as administrator and not cause any UAC prompt!

Logging and task history

All manually started and scheduled operations are logged, including the
full Robocopy output. The complete history of a mirror task may be
displayed for further analysis.

Volume shadow copies

By creating a temporary shadow copy of the source (restore operation: target)
volume and copying from that shadow copy, all files can be copied, including files locked by
running processes (e.g., Outlook locking its .pst files, SQL server its
databases).

This is accomplished using the handy AlphaVSS open-source library.
A non-persistent shadow copy snapshot (a.k.a. System Restore point) of the source
(restore operation: target) volume will be created and mounted as network share.
As soon as the mirror operation is finished, the shadow copy is deleted.

Features requiring elevated privileges

Volume shadow copy to copy files locked by running processes

Robocopy backup mode/zb or /b to copy files the user has no direct access to

In order to use these features, the user needs to be in the Backup Operators
or in the Administrators group. In the latter case, Robomirror needs
to be run as administrator if using Windows Vista or newer and UAC is enabled.

You may modify the default switches to your liking by editing the file RoboMirror.exe.config
in the application directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\RoboMirror\RoboMirror.exe.config). It is an
XML file, open it with your favourite text editor.

In that file you may also disable the simulation run if you feel confident
and want to save some seconds and a mouse click when performing a backup.